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The Russian Passenger

Reply All has increasingly become one of those podcasts, that I'll download site unseen and then hit play awaiting audible magic to happen. This is in no small part due to the resilience hosts P.J. Vogt and Alex Goldman’s showcase in diving deep into parts of the internet or things associated with the internet that nobody else would give two craps about.

Case in point is the recent two-part episode that starts with the simple question from Gimlet CEO Alex Blumberg: how did my Uber account get hacked?

To navigate the story, they talk to a number of security experts who address the whole shebang of potential threats — malware, keyloggers, SIM hacking, social engineering, man-in-the-middle attacks, phishing, and password reuse. If you've not dipped yourself into the world of security online, it's quite a handy primer on the matter.

We begin with, The Russian Passenger, which starts with a series of mysterious Uber rides in Russia and quickly weaves into a crusade to uncover what is going on, with the help of Alex’s dad and the unsuspecting use of a Surface Pro.

To conclude, senior producer Phia Bennin follows up with submitted theories, tech engineers, and Uber’s own security team to finally get a definitive and some might say satisfying ending.

P.S. If you’re still reusing passwords in 2017, chances are the hacking clock has started to tick. So do yourself a favor and get a password manager. I highly, highly recommend LastPass or 1Password. Yep, it’s a hassle to get started, but you’ll never look back once you do.